I Quit
by 1madscientist
Summary: Did you ever get the feeling, watching or reading Deathly Hallows, that Harry Potter was sick of this shit? Did the camping really do it for him? I feel like he was absolutely done at that point.


This was it. The moment the entire series had culminated towards. The Death Eaters flanked Voldemort before the castle.  
Harry had sprang to life and Voldemort was still gawking at him in shock.  
"I had a thought, Tom." Harry looked pensive, wiser than his years.  
Affronted at being addressed by his diminutive, Christian name, Voldemort stood tall. "Pardon?"  
"When I was pretending to be dead."  
The air was still. "What?" Voldemort asked impatiently.  
"I quit" he said softly.  
"What?" said multiple people, including Voldemort. "You can't quit" he added pointedly.  
"Why not? I'm sick of this. I never signed up for it. Surely you can see we keep going around in circles."  
"This is the end" Voldemort replied darkly.  
"But that's what you always say. I'm tired. I've only been doing this my entire life, and you've wasted your entire life trying to be immortal. For what?"  
Voldemort frowned. "It is rather ironic."  
"What do either of us have to gain? Do you think anyone would begrudge you immortality if you didn't use it to go around killing people?"  
"But Harry," chirped in Neville, "he killed your parents."  
"To get to me. He's a sociopath, it was hardly intentional, like if we tried it."  
Voldemort looked impressed. The expression didn't suit him.  
"The longer we do this, the higher the death toll. Wizards are already rare. There's like, what, ten thousand in all of Britain, Hermione?"  
Hermione nodded cautiously. "That's right."  
"I know I'm meant to be the Good Guy here but I don't want anyone else to die, and I sense you checked out a long time ago." Voldemort's expression grew confused. "Who would you rule over, if you succeed and kill everyone? Where are your precious purebloods then, to submit to you, unable to get the numbers to survive more than a couple of generations? Can't you just go into politics like all the other sociopaths?"  
The Death Eaters laughed, Lucius Malfoy in particular.  
"I did like the sound of Minister for Magic." Voldemort pondered and tapped his high cheekbone.  
"I'd vote for you." Harry replied. "As long as you don't kill me." He raised his hands in innocence.  
Voldemort's lip twitched. "What of the prophecy?"  
"What of it? That only applies if either of us care about it. I want to draw a line under this whole thing and have a normal life. Isn't that what all of us want?" Slowly, people nodded, students, teachers and Death Eaters alike.  
"Too much magical blood has been spilt" Voldemort's words were guarded. "Killing Muggles didn't seem sporting."  
"In response to you, the Aurors killed a lot of people too. The Ministry, the whole Wizarding World, became as bad. This whole thing was Dumbledore's idea, the bearded control freak; he wanted to feel better about his mistakes with Grindelwald, and he's dead. His influence over me died too. I think he might've had me under the Imperius Curse at times, going by how reckless I behaved. I'm sick of losing people I love and you love the magical world too, in your own twisted way."  
"How would this work?" Lord Voldemort suspected a trap. "A gentleman's accord, a handshake?" You could taste the sarcasm.  
"Simple. We make an Unbreakable Vow to quit trying to kill each other."  
Voldemort scoffed at the simplicity of it. "It would work."  
"It would work and we could all move on like adults."  
The air was pregnant with the tension. "Don't you want revenge?"  
"Hey, I don't care what you do anymore. I have the grief equivalent of compassion fatigue. The Ministry can deal with you, that's their job, isn't it? I'm a teenage boy, this is an insane amount of pressure on me and I'm not even clever." Hermione giggled. "I've been lucky to get this far."  
Voldemort gave a small nod of agreement. "What of my aspirations?"  
"Regarding? I mean, assuming you had everything, imagine how bored you'd be after one century, two, three? As magical Britain dies because you knocked us below replacement level?"  
Voldemort froze in contemplation. "I had settled upon the path of Dark Lord at such a young age it seemed like the sole option."  
"It isn't. I got so desperate for time away I went bloody camping. I grew up poor, I hate camping. It's cold and the food is rank. Running away from my problems made them worse. What do you want to do, Tom Riddle?"  
"I want to write spells and develop the science of magic. That was my original aim but I didn't think I could live long enough to accomplish much, and then I discovered my birthright and my anger... somewhat overtook me." He looked sad, etched on his face it looked more terrifying.  
"You had a terrible upbringing but you have a choice, like I did with the Dursleys. You can let it define you or you can become more, you can rise to something better. I'm sorry for what you had to go through, truly, but must the whole world suffer? Can't you work to preserve the magic that gave both of us hope, growing up in a horrid situation?"  
"Thank you. Your words are eloquent, Harry Potter. I fear I cannot go back, even should I wish it. I have done too much."  
"That isn't for me to decide. Worst case scenario, you go into hiding and work on your spells, submit them to journals from afar. You can outlive me. In my solution, everybody wins."  
"I am the Dark Lord, the one and only." His pride rose.  
"And you'll remain the one and only. What am I meant to beat you with, the Power of Love? What sort of School Special bullshit is that? You outgun me, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. You leave me alone and I'll gladly do likewise. What's the point of life if you aren't living?"  
Voldemort's red eyes simmered down, the rage usually present darkened into his older brownish tones.  
"We both know this. We've done this. You trap me, I try to escape, you say you're gonna kill me, I put on that bravado and keep you talking long enough to luck out of the situation because I'm Harry. I'm just Harry, and if you'd gone after Neville's parents that night nobody would call me the Boy Who Lived. I want to live long enough to be a man."  
Neville looked upset, "What are we supposed to do?"  
"Have at it" Harry waved toward Voldemort and turned "All of you, if you want to fight, I can't stop you, but I don't want to join you either. There has been too much - too much loss, too much pain and too much Death. I'm done. I quit."  
"Me too. I'm sorry" Voldemort's voice was almost a whisper. His eyes widened as he heard his own words and he appeared to be choking. The Death Eaters stalled and didn't know what to do in panic. Voldemort was slick with sweat and screaming in unhumanly agony.  
"Remorse, Tom. Your soul is healing." Harry felt light-headed, he'd been reading about this part in the books on horcruxes that Dumbledore had left him in his will, his vision blurred and the piece of Lord Voldemort's soul exited his mouth and returned to its master, last of the others. Harry dropped to his knees, relieved. He felt free.  
Voldemort's limbs were stretched in a grotesque way, his hands grasping at the air in pain. Harry crawled over and grabbed his left hand. "Harry, Harry-" Voldemort panted "forgive me?" he felt like he was dying, it was his last wish.  
"I do, Tom." And that is how Lord Voldemort died. The body was still. Bellatrix screamed, silenced by Narcissa. A tear of stress fell down Harry's cheek and dropped on the Dark Lord's hand. A tear of true forgiveness. A sudden gasp of breath, retching in reverse for air and the body sat up. The eyes were dark as they were but the face still slightly warped and serpentine, just missing his nose. Otherwise it looked like... "Hello Tom, I'm Harry."  
Tom looked traumatized, in the deepest shock. He felt things. He hadn't felt human in decades, since he himself was a teenager, except the hormones weren't addling his brains now. "You know..." he sounded almost normal, "I've never got drunk?" He looked up at Harry like he'd never seen him before, everything looked anew.  
"Me neither. I think I spied some Firewhiskey in the headmaster's office."  
"Can we...?" Tom stopped himself.  
"Go on."  
"Can we do it in the Chamber? Seems fitting."  
"Yes, what a legend. I think we must. That's the best idea I've heard in ages. You'll have to open the door though, I can't speak Parseltongue anymore."  
Tom laughed softly. "Is this quite real?" Harry hoisted him up to stand.  
"Yes, I think so. Do you want me to see if I can help about the body? Especially the face."  
Tom touched his face in horror. "Merlin, yes. I thought it might work for me but it doesn't. I miss having a nose."  
"You won't when we get to the chamber."  
Ron strode over, "You must be kidding, this must be a trick, mate. After all this you're going to let him off? Do we kill him now?" Neville stalked shortly behind with the sword of Gryffindor, somehow.  
"I want this over with. I have the most reason to hate him of anyone. Like I said, if you wanna go for him, you can."  
"Tomorrow" Tom said, "I'm parched."  
"Humans feel thirst." Harry reminded him.  
"I want chocolate." Tom surprised himself. It seems he'd regressed to the point at which he'd made the first Horcrux. He had a second chance.  
"War rations must've sucked."  
"You have no idea, it tasted like dirt."  
They hobbled together into Hogwarts. Nobody dared stop them, touch them. The Death Eaters relaxed but for a few hours of the celebration of the end of the War, with an unprecedented zero casualties to accomplish it, the two sides were guarded with one another, suspecting a trap. Once everyone was good and drunk, however, these fears were washed away. Bellatrix was crying about Azkaban and fearful of Harry's reprisal for killing Sirius Black. He hadn't promised to let her off. Aside from that, they were all of them relieved. Everybody thinks they want a war until it comes. There were jokes cast over the air about trials and other such reprisals but for the time being, they wanted a good time after so much bad.  
Once riotously drunk and after setting up a Christmas tree in the Chamber of Secrets, in spring, as the two orphans never really knew Christmas growing up, Tom reached for some green tinsel and bumped into Harry's pocket. Something hard bumped back with a clink.  
"Wozzat?" he blurred and squinted.  
Harry burst into peals of laughter.  
"Nahhhhh, cmon... wozzat?"  
"You won't believe this." Harry wheezed, containing his laughter. He removed from his pocket an empty vial of felix felicis.  
Tom stared open-mouthed. "Cheat. Cheat!" he pointed. "Ahh, I can't believe you did that. You're the nice one!"  
"What was I supposed to do? Make a suicidally stupid offer and just let you kill me? I needed Lady Luck on my side, and she was." Harry chucked the vial at him and bit his lip smugly.  
"You'll never guess what" Tom looked up, grinning sheepishly. Tom Riddle removed a similarly empty vial of the same potion from his robe's folds. "Great minds do think alike" he reprimanded Harry, with Slytherin cunning now glittering in his inky black eyes. Drunk off their tits, Tom Riddle hiccuped, fell over face to flagstone and Harry Potter fell on the tree, both corpsing at their own brilliance. They passed out with another echoing rendition of Row, row, row your boat.


End file.
